Alain Benoit wrote:I was merely trying to...explain to Christian at the same time the shortcomings if you will of that particular topology.

To further those statements, that tightness required for the style is as you all now all in the low end, the lower end of the spectrum is of course as most know where all the energy is, that energy has to be reproduced by the output section, it just ain't there.

A.

And it's appreciated! I couldn't sleep last night, so I was poring over a thread at gearslutz where one guy kept going on about how low-wattage amps can't even convey clean guitar properly, because they physically don't have enough power to carry those necessary lower frequencies...why you'll never see a 5 watt bass amp, for example. Would I be missing something fundamental if I went with the H&K? If I were to buy a 7-string guitar to chug away on some electronic doom metal, would the H&K be, let's say, less than ideal? I guess my muddled impression of it right now is of a 3-band eq missing the bass control...a neopolitan ice cream missing that sweet dark chocolate. But I sure didn't notice anything missing when I tried it Sunday night, cranking the gain and scooping the eq. So if I can't even notice it, is it worth worrying about? Or is it the type of thing I'd notice in an amp shoot-out, testing one against the other, or when it came time to do a mix of one of my songs?

On the other hand, wouldn't mixing be a little easier, since there wouldn't be those lower frequencies fighting with the bass? The guitar is a mid-range instrument, after all. Maybe if I absolutely have to get a low-sounding crunch, I can put a mic in front of my bass amp and run my guitar into that; the other 99% of the time when I'm recording a song that has bass, guitar, and 2 or 3 synth melodies, I don't think the missing low-end of the H&K would bother me, would it?

My other question: I love fussing around with effects pedals. Would I not get some of those lower frequencies back by using eq? Or would I just be boosting something that was never there in the first place? If I have a distortion pedal that boosts lower frequencies really well, will it just sound thinner through a lower-wattage amp?

If you were doing 7 string electronic doom metal the H&K definitely wouldn't be the amp for you. However the amp that would be good for that, probably might not be good for a lot of other stuff that you do. There's not an amp in the world that will every guitar tone perfectly.

With this, or any other low wattage amp, there won't be low frequencies missing and the bottom end won't be cut off. The reason people don't use them for metal is that they're not tight enough which shows up primarily in the low end. This is what Al was referring to about slew rate which is basically how fast the amp can push the speaker out and have it return to neutral position. The faster an amp can do that the "tighter" it will be perceived and you can play faster parts with more definition. For metal this is obviously a very attractive attribute. For many other genres it's actually the opposite. Having a little bit of mush, particularly at a higher gain setting can be advantageous for creating a smoother more gelled sound.

If you want to cover multiple types of tone you really need multiple amps. Which is why a studio like Fluid has piles of them. Although I've never heard the H&K from the sounds of things it should suit you well. Can be played at lo/no volume, has a decent array of tonal capabilities, and hey it glows blue! Sounds like a good amp to start with and then you can always buy/rent/borrow more amps down the road as you find you need.

Just kidding - thank you for taking the time to explain it the way you did (the actual way, not the meows), it made a lot of sense to me and reinforced my gut feeling on this. I have it in my head that this will be quite conducive to songwriting, giving me an array of quality tones that I'm just not used to hearing at home right now.

Andrew beat me to it but yeah, the lows aren't actually missing they just cannot be reproduced accurately due to the above mentioned technical reasons.

Final trial of the Tubemeister last night, Al Gallant, local illustrious blues guitarist, tried it out.Now typically when Al tries out and amp he gives it a good go, comments and then proceeds to plug into his own rig, usually a Fender.Last night he continued to play through it all night. He is actually interested in using it at his next gig.

Alain Benoit wrote:Final trial of the Tubemeister last night, Al Gallant, local illustrious blues guitarist, tried it out.Now typically when Al tries out and amp he gives it a good go, comments and then proceeds to plug into his own rig, usually a Fender.Last night he continued to play through it all night. He is actually interested in using it at his next gig.

A.

Knowing Al... that's a serious positive endorsement.

"Once again, it is NEVER the gear that makes a good record.It just fills Forum pages..." --compasspnt

I just picked this up over lunch :) Looking forward to many blue-lit experiments to come. Thanks to everyone in this thread for helping me make this decision, and for everything I've learned since my initial question.

Scott DeVarenne wrote:Yay. Even if you decide against the Tubemeister, I'm just glad we talked you out of buying the Cube40.

As am I. As was Dan at the store! For my sake, I mean, not for sales reasons (I told him you guys sold me the amp, basically).

I had a great big long post done up of my first impressions last night, when the computer ate my response. In a nutshell, I didn't care much for the Tubemeister's distortion on the lead channel coming out of the redbox...I was ok with the distortion coming out of 4x12s at the store and at FAG, but not in love with it. Direct, it just sounded pretty dull to me, but maybe I was doing something wrong. My strings were pretty dirty, maybe that was contributing to it? Maybe I was judging it unfairly against a fuzz pedal that I really love? Anyway, I didn't play around with it much because I was having more fun with my fuzz pedal in the effects loop...I loved how a bit of crunch in each channel sounded with my fuzz pedal. With the pedal off, I really enjoyed how the clean channel with the gain set high gave me some snappy crunch when attacking the strings hard enough (velocity sensitivity, who knew!). I'd like to do some quick recordings this weekend so I can show you what I mean about everything, and also do some demonstrations sending the signal into my stereo pedals (I picked up an XLR to 1/4" cable yesterday as well). As it was, a loud clean signal being fed directly into my stereo chorus pedal was causing some breakup, so I'll need to play with that aspect as well...again, I didn't fuss around with it too much.

To sum up, last night was the most fun I've had playing a guitar in...ever, quite possibly; 'testing' quickly turned into just staying up late and playing the hell out of my axe

If you haven't already, play around with gain turned way down and master way up. Compare that to gain up high. It's a different flavor, but I don't really know how well it would translate direct. When I tried the Tubemeister at L&M I had them grab me a little 1x12 cabinet from out back- I didn't even bother with the 4x12 that it was already plugged into because that's not what I'm used to and I don't foresee myself using a large cab anytime soon, if ever. And yeah, you gotta give the amp a fair shake by putting some new strings on, pronto.

I take back what I said about the distortion - it's pretty great. My problem the other night was that I just wasn't using the boost like I should have been My only complaint with it now is that if I go to play it for 5 or 10 minutes, an hour or two passes before I know it.

I forgot to play around with preamp vs power amp distortion in the lead channel, but I think I was getting this in the clean channel already...it was more dynamic and responsive to my playing.

I also take back what I said about recording with it this weekend...I have a huge accounting exam early June and I know that recording short clips with this would lose me a whole day of studying, what with the fun and all. I'll know what I'm doing with it better by next month, anyway